All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Invade
(My Fleming Foundation article: https://fleming.foundation/2021/09/all-dressed-up-and-nowhere-to-invade/ )
By John Seiler
One of the benefits of Joe Biden in the White House is he can’t give long speeches. I suggest watching all of his Sept. 21 address to the United Nations. It’s half an hour and features the usual hesitations and mispronunciations.
Such speeches, even for sentient presidents, are patched together from the various policy shops. So they feature something from all the factions in the administration, indeed among the ruling elite. Obviously nothing is to be taken at face value.
On foreign policy, the main takeaway is this is a transition period following the Afghanistan defeat. Biden called it “an inflection point in history.” He talked a lot about moving beyond the wars, searching for peaceful solutions, advancing democracy, freedom, liberty, peace and niceness. Which means he – or whoever is running the show – still can use: assassinations, bribes, foreign aid (but I repeat myself), media manipulation, espionage, digital sabotage, etc.
China, Russia and other problems were indirectly addressed. Some conservatives, such as Sen. Tom Cotton, got upset Biden didn’t even mention them by name. On one of the FoxNews talk shows, Cotton brought up Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. If he becomes president, we can be assured he would invade. Perhaps he will pen a new “Charge of the Light Brigade.”
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Although in the new situation, it would be 600 Russian nuclear bombs raining down on American cities.
Biden naturally brought up “climate change,” a great money-making scam at the expense of the American middle class.
On September 24, Foreign Affairs magazine ran “The Future of Conquest: Fights Over Small Places Could Spark the Next Big War.” I’m skeptical. Do Americans care about the Senkaku Islands? Some pother in the Middle East? Whatever happens in Ukraine? Why is that any of our business? After the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans are sick of their sickening elites always making us the global buttinski.
Another question is how much the recent stupidities affect military retention. You can’t intervene if you don’t have troops to carry the M-16s and push the cruise-missile launch buttons. Military duty is difficult even in the best places, such as being a clerk at a base in San Diego with its perfect climate. For one thing, at any time, you could get shipped to duty in Alaska, or into a combat zone. For another, if you screw up, you could get a dishonorable discharge that haunts you the rest of your life.
The big problem for Biden and the rest of the interventionist Establishment is even medium-sized powers such as Iran can build high-tech conventional weapons that could wreak havoc on American forces. The microchip revolution not only changes communications, but weapons. The iPhone you hold in your hand uses technology that has made similar improvements, at low cost, to weapons. These weapons can be manufactured cheaply, using Chinese components, right in Iran. Other are being imported from China and Russia.
An invasion just would not be possible. America still could bomb Iran – to continue this example – but then what? After an attack, the momentum changes to the enemy’s side to see what he will do. Would Iran sink American aircraft carriers? Could it?
If today’s military hardware had been available 20 years ago, invading Iraq and even Afghanistan would have been much more difficult.
Another aspect also concerns technology: Ubiquitous cameras. Everybody, even in the poorest countries, now uses cheap phones with cameras. Uplinks are instantaneous. The U.S. government-linked social media still can censor images, along with the controlled U.S. press. But there are other outlets across the globe.
The result is the U.S. Establishment is taking a time out to figure out what to do next. Like the guy in the White House, even the Establishment gets exhausted and confused and needs a long nap.
John Seiler blogs at johnseiler.substack.com